01 September, 2008

Box Office works with surprises

The weekend box office grossed around 9M€ (14M$), 5% more than last weekend, and 40% more than last year.

The buzz was focused on three blockbuster movies, Zohan, The Dark Knight, and Mamma Mia!, each grossing more than 1M€.

Surprise came from Sony release Zohan, starring Adam Sandler, reaching the astonishing result of 2,2ME (3,3M$) in as few as 340 sites, something unexpected which topped Dark Knight's gross.

A strong promotion by Sony and the fact that Zohan is the only comedy showing were enough to catch the teenage target. As a consequence, many moviegoers turned their back on Batman, as Warner's release suddenly fell 57% from last week, cumulating a modest amount of 7,7M€ (11,5M$) so far.

The Dark Knight did not manage to catch on families and adults (female in particular), a public which is not particularly keen on comic adpations in Spain, and this helps explain the movie bad result in our country.

On the contrary, Mamma Mia! keeps running on, as it does in many international markets, holding the pressure of other major releases and enjoying the word of mouth of both female and adult targets.

The film just fell 20% and cumulates 6M€ (9M$) in 400 locations.

Bangkok Dangerous and Space Chimps, the two remaining large releases of the week, showed a common pattern: they were both distributed by national agencies and promoted with a huge commercial effort, but could not even reach a gross of 1M€.

Bangkok grossed 0,8M€ (1,2M$) in 313 locations, with a modest average of 2.550€ (3.800$), confirming the poor enthusiasm of its main target, adult males.

Space Chimps did not get anyone's attention, obtaining only 360'000€ (540'000$) in 327 screens, far away from a good result. The upcoming weeks will tell whether the huge investment in external and TV commercials will be recovered.

Among the small releases, the best option has been the female-targeted Por Fin Viuda, a French comedy released in 56 locations by Spanish distributor Notro Films which grossed 95.000€ (147.000$), mostly thanks to an audience of 40+ years old women.

Once again, this attests how women are more and more a profitable target, together with teenagers and families, while men are fastly becoming less lucrative.